Purple Crocuses

21 September. Today we planted 5,000 purple crocuses. So why on earth did we do that? Well, it’s all part of Rotary’s ongoing campaign to rid the world of Polio. I can remember going to school with children who were affected by Polio, which paralysed their limbs and made walking without assistance almost impossible. That’s because 50 years ago, Polio was very evident in the UK, as it was throughout the world. Most people I knew whilst growing up would have known someone, or a family that was affected by the disease. Since 1988, when Polio was still endemic in 125 countries, Rotary have been working to eradicate this terrible disease, launching the ‘End Polio Now’ campaign with tremendous success. New cases of polio have reduced by 99.9% and it is now endemic in just 3 countries, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

This  has been achieved through tremendous efforts to immunise all children in countries where it is endemic. This has to be done yearly, even after there have been no new cases reported in that country. Hundreds of millions of children are immunised every year with an oral vaccine, and two of my colleagues at Shepperton Aurora have attended national Immunisation days (NIDs) in India. In the sub-continent there have been no new reported instances of the virus for  2 or 3 years, but annual immunisation of millions of kids must continue whilst there is a risk of it returning. The cost of this programme is huge, running into many millions of pounds, but we have a major partner in Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who through his charitable Foundation, gives £2 for every £1 we raise. Therefore £100 raised by Rotary towards End Polio Now becomes £300.

Bill Gates

So many children are immunised every year in India alone that a way needed to be found to establish who had been inoculated and who hadn’t, or there would be a risk of treating the same child more than once. The problem was solved by painting the little finger on the left hand of each child who had been immunised purple. The dye used takes a few days to come off.  So the idea of the ‘purple pinkie’ was born. Children will still try and have a second dose, by covering their fingers with a bandage or suchlike, because recipients always get a sweet, or a toy or something to encourage them.

A child's finger is painted

In the last couple of years Rotary in Britain and Ireland has had a ‘Purple for Polio’ campaign to assist our fundraising for the immunisation programme. The purple crocus has come to symbolise the Purple for Polio campaign, as it represents the ‘purple pinkie’. RIBI’s plan is to plant 10 million purple crocuses throughout our islands this year, and we have bought 5,000 of them. Sunbury Manor School  agreed that they could be planted at the school, and have gone even further by purchasing another 5,000 themselves. Allan Cottle, Deputy Head at the school has been very supportive of our wishes to publicise the End Polio Now campaign, and offered us a stretch of grass between the school car park and the street, where we can create a swathe of purple next spring through the mass planting of crocuses.

Crocuses

Having been ordered in July, the crocuses (variety Ruby Giant) arrived from Holland in mid-September, and it was my task to collect our club’s order of two boxes from Company Moves in Fleet, the business of Kevin Mack, who generously took delivery of all the boxes ordered for our District. The e-mail said that 1.5 tons of boxes had been delivered, and hinted that a fork-lift truck may be needed to get them in and out of cars. This took me by surprise, as I didn’t think there would be a great deal of weight to our two boxes. Before leaving for Fleet, I took the precaution of emptying the car boot and folding down the rear seats, so there would be plenty of room, and I just hoped  the car’s suspension would be up to the job. It all turned out to be a false alarm. The boxes really weren’t very big, and probably weighed about 4 to 5 stones each. Kevin and I got them into the boot without any trouble, and off I went.

What a carpet of 'Ruby Giant' should look like

Now we were in possession of the crocuses, I wanted to waste no time in getting them into the ground. 5 days later, a working party comprising myself, the PDG, Ken, Chris, Peter, Lyn, Joe and Doreen came along to the school to undertake this project. The instructions said we needed to remove a square yard of turf to a depth of three inches, sprinkle 150 crocus corms evenly into the hole created, then replace the turf. Not too difficult, you may think, but we had to repeat this about 70 times. In seeking volunteers, I pointed out that we didn’t just want diggers, but counters too, as it would be an important job just to count the corms into batches of 150.

Counting corms - the PDG and Ken

We had a 30 yard stretch of grass to plant up, so we quickly got down to work, creating a rolling trench. The diggers (Chris and I, and Joe for a while)slowly worked across the grass digging out the turf, the ground underneath was raked and planted with crocuses, then filled in again. It was quite hard work at times, but we had a lot of laughs, and the time passed very quickly. The school provided us with coffee, and both Head Teacher Louise Duncan and Deputy Head Allan Cottle came out to thank us for the work we were doing. The Head’s PA, Joanne Barrett even helped with the planting. Fortunately the weather was dry and mild in the morning whilst we were working, and there was rain later on. Perfect growing conditions, I think.

Joanne helps with planting

The site we were working on was partly under the shade of an oak tree, and the grass had quite a sprinkling of acorns, many of which were buried under the turf with the crocuses. Who knows, in Spring we may not only have a superb blanket of crocuses covering the ground, but an oak tree nursery as well.

Peter pieces together the turf jigsaw

I liked the fact we were wearing our Rotary tabards and thus highly visible to passers by, although there was the occasional misunderstanding, as when two youths passed by, and I heard one say to the other ‘ I see the Rotary Club are doing Community Service.’ Actually, that is just what we were doing, although not in quite the same way that he was suggesting.

Chris and I do the digging

Our original intention was to plant all 10,000 of them, but the space given to us was only big enough for 5,000. So we gave the other 5,000 to Allan Cottle (he had paid for them after all) and he was planning to get the Interact Club involved in planting them around the school, including the Rotary garden that we created last year.

Everybody looks busy

All we need to do now is create a suitable sign to erect on the grass, so that people will understand the symbolism of the bed of crocuses. We also need to cross our fingers that the crocuses actually appear in Spring.

 Doreen tramples down the turf. Is that suitable footwear for gardening?

Hurricane Irma

18^th September.  10 days ago Hurricane Irma swept through the Caribbean and Florida, leaving a trail of destruction behind it. Many people lost their lives, and countless others lost their homes and any means of making a living. Of course hurricanes occur regularly every year, and once they pass, people pick themselves up, rebuild and start again. But Irma was a monster. About 800 miles wide, it was the size of Texas and wherever it made landfall it did so with catastrophic ferocity.  The destructive power of winds travelling at over 185 mph was only too evident on islands such as Barbuda, Anguilla, St Barts, St Maarten and both British and US Virgin Islands. In Florida, millions were advised to evacuate their homes as the storm approached, although it had thankfully lost some of its strength by the time it hit the mainland.

Hurricane Irma reaches Cuba

Our Rotary Club has a strong record of responding to natural disasters around the world. Most memorable  was the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 in the Indian Ocean. We were outside Tesco in Sunbury collecting within a couple of days, and people responded with amazing generosity, with £10 and £20 notes being placed in our buckets. I can’t remember how much we collected in one day, but it was sufficient to purchase at least 5 Shelter Boxes, which I recall cost around £300 each at the time. Shelter Boxes provide the means for a family of up to 10 to survive for several weeks, with a large tent, cooking equipment, a water purifier, blankets, torch and tool kit. I recall a similar response to the Haiti earthquake in 2010.

A Shelter Box

The key to our success in fundraising for these causes was being out collecting in a very short space of time after disaster struck, whilst it still dominated the news bulletins. People can be extraordinarily generous when such disasters are foremost in their minds, as it is a natural impulse to want to do something to help, and we were providing the means for them to do so. Tesco supermarket in Sunbury has always supported our efforts, for which we are most grateful.

Tesco at Sunbury

So it was that our club members wanted to do something to support the relief effort in the wake of Irma. Last Wednesday the speaker we had booked at our meeting was unable to attend, which gave us the opportunity to discuss what we should do, at some length. Chris Arnot, who actually has a timeshare apartment in the British Virgin islands, and therefore some understanding of the plight of the people there, led the discussion. He regularly visits the Rotary Club of Tortola and has become aware that Rotary District 7020, which covers the Caribbean, has set up a Disaster Fund to provide relief to those worst affected by the storm. We felt that on this occasion, rather than purchase Shelterboxes, our money would have more immediate effect if we simply sent  everything we collect to this fund.

The lower photo, taken post-Irma, shows all the greenery stripped from Caribbean islands

I accompanied Chris to Tesco and we met up with Customer Experience manager Conor Halliday, who is our usual contact, and he readily agreed for us to collect outside the store on Saturday, 16^th September. Karen Sutton designed a super poster to display whilst collecting, and my old friend Peter Petersens of Mailboxes etc in Weybridge printed a couple of copies for us. Tesco supplied an A-board for us to display the posters. So we were all set, and with the assistance of our colleagues at Shepperton & Sunbury Rotary, all slots were filled at the store from 10 a.m until 8 p.m. on Saturday. Ken was to come back and forth during the day to collect the contents of our buckets.

Paraquita Bay Tortola before Irma....

.....Paraquita Bay after

The PDG and I took the first slot from 10 until 11 a.m. and parked ourselves just inside the foyer. We took a while to decide the best place for the A-board to go, for maximum impact. It started inside the foyer, then was placed outside, before bringing it inside again. As the hour progressed it became apparent to me that a wheelchair was a major asset when collecting for charity. People were walking past me to put cash into the PDG’s bucket. Many didn’t even know what she was collecting for, they just saw her, in her wheelchair, and decided to give her money. I decided to hide my annoyance at being upstaged in this way, because after all money in buckets was what we were there for. I was aware that the supermarket provides wheelchairs for the use of disabled customers, and I contemplated seeing if I could get hold of one, but thought better of it. 

The PDG and me with A-board

Several people stopped for a chat, including one woman who told me she remembered me from the Christmas street collections, which her children look forward to every year. I assured her that the real Father Christmas always accompanies us, and any similarity to me was purely coincidental. The PDG meanwhile picked up a speaker for a future meeting.

Father Christmas leaves his sleigh outside Tesco at Christmas with elf driver

Now and again, somebody would question why we were collecting at all. For instance, one woman asked why British taxpayers should be collecting for the British Virgin Islands, which are full of millionaires avoiding paying their taxes in the UK. My response was that not everyone living there was a millionaire, and many people have lost everything. Furthermore, by sending donations to a Rotary disaster fund, we were ensuring that all the money raised would be used by Rotarians on the spot to give help where it was most needed.

Tesco store manager Robbie with Caroline, Norma, Ken, Ian and Eric

Collections continued throughout the day, with the PDG and I taking the final slot, from 7 to 8 p.m. I was amused to see that in an effort to gain maximum impact our A-board had by now been moved into the entrance doorway, so customers had to take evasive action to avoid crashing their trollies into it.  The day had been slower than we had hoped, although our busiest time came as 8 o’clock approached. On reflection I think our problem was about timing. We were collecting more than 7 days after the event, and news headlines had moved on from Hurricane Irma, so it wasn’t foremost in people’s minds. Over the course of the day we collected £450, but with further donations pledged by Rotary members, our final total was more like £1100, a respectable sum for our Treasurer to send off to the Disaster fund.

Janet, Caroline and Lyn, who seems to have turned into Dolly Parton for the day

Postscript: As I write this I am listening to the News. A new Hurricane, Maria, is now battering the Caribbean islands. Let’s hope it doesn’t follow the same course.